Telos, Ethos, Demos and the future of the European Union

Working Group






REPORT
on


ETHOS














Vama Veche, Romania, August 20- 26 2007




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TALKING POINTS




1. DEFINITION

2. ATTRIBUTES

3. CONTENT

4. FUNCTIONS

5. DYNAMICS

6. EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

7. PERSPECTIVES IN THE EU

8. CONCLUSION













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1. DEFINITION - WHAT DOES ETHOS MEAN?

During the discussions the representatives of the group tried to point
out certain elements of the ETHOS as it is perceived on an individual
level or at a collective level, defining this concept.
The approaches stressed out were trying to express the content of
ETHOS, its formation, its results, its functioning, generating interesting
debates. Some of the definitions were more close to a genesis type,
some approached a genus proximus and specific difference alternative
(underlining the importance of values and the long term formation, the
ability to bound people, the capacity of being generally accepted).

Following the debates, the group synthesized the following definition of
ETHOS:

ETHOS is a generally accepted set of formal and informal values
and characteristics established in a long period of time, able to
shape the expectation and justify the behavior of a community
of individuals and statal entities.

2. ATTRIBUTES WHAT IS ETHOS LIKE?

In the process of finding a more accurate understanding of ETHOS a
number of attributes of the concept proved to be of interest in the
opinion of the members of the group, such as:
- continuous;
- long term based;
- generally accepted;


2.1. Continuous and flexible:
ETHOS, since its formation, changes over time, responding to the
societal and political needs. ETHOS manages to perpetually reinvent
itself by means of reinvigorating its elements of content. For example,
in a 1971 article, Ronald INGLEHART referred to a silent revolution
consisting in a shift from material values to post-material values
(world peace, care for the environment). In his opinion, this shift was
caused by a period of economic well-being in which a new
generation/cohort was socialized.
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2.2.Long term based:
ETHOS is operational over a long period of time necessary for its
creation, understanding, promotion and actual implementation.


2.3. Generally accepted:
The ETHOS will be able to exercise its functions once it has been
embedded into the collective conscience. Jurgen HABERMAS proposed
the theory of communicative action as a way through which norms are
accepted and included in the public conscience. In the light of his
theory, the group concluded that in the sensitive area of religious
beliefs, EU should do no more than building a neutral framework that
would enable and encourage a trialogue (Christianity, Islam and
Jewish religion) of religions.


3. CONTENT - WHAT IS ETHOS REALLY ABOUT?

Searching for the elements of ETHOS, the group tried to set some
boundaries to whatever ETHOS is really represented by.
Its conclusions are that ETHOS can never be limited to a single form of
concepts and in fact can never be limited at all. There are multiple
forms that shape the content of ETHOS:

3.1. I nformal expressions (non-codified): Greek philosophy, Roman
law, religion (as Friedrich NIETZSCHE pointed out), culture and
morality. It is essential to note at this point that the effect of values
should itself be judged over time. For example, Enlightenment started
by being considered a paradigmatic shift from dogmatic and
conservative thinking towards progress and flexibility. However,
following the destructive experience of the two world wars, scholars
such as Theodore ADORNO in his Dialectic of Enlightenment, stated
that the instrumentalization of ration and the impetuous of
development and evolution created the opposite effects, despite the
apparent optimistic feeling surrounding Enlightenment. The group
discussion highlighted the need to reflect on the values, going beyond
its obvious positive effect.





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3.2. Formal expressions (codified):

A. Values

a. General values: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy,
equality, rule of law, respect for human rights and for the rights of
minorities.


b. Principles:

b.1. Principles governing international relations, such as: not resolving
to the use of force, peaceful resolution of conflicts, duty to cooperate,
right to self determination, sovereign equality of states, fulfillment in
good faith of its international obligations, right to self defence and
resist oppression.

b.2. Principles governing the community law: subsidiarity and
proportionality, respect for national identities, respect for the human
rights, flexibility, of autonomy of communitarian institutions,
institutional balance, of specialized legal competence


B. Characteristics

In the light of the discussions brought nowadays at the European
Unions level, the Member States and the EU are more and more
concerned with making a distinction between values and
characteristics in the virtue of the possibility of opening a suspending
procedure of one states rights in the hypothesis where that state fails
to comply with the former, but not with the latter.
In this context the underlined characteristics may be considered:
pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and gender
equality.


4. FUNCTIONS: - WHAT DOES ETHOS DO?

The working group acknowledged that the practical traction of ETHOS
resides in its functions, such as:

4.1. Legitimizing function
ETHOS justifies behavioral intentions and resource-mobilization for the
attainment of community objectives. The group noted that the
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European legitimizing deficit can only be overcome by a common
ethos. In relation to the mobilization of resources, the discussions
referred to Jurgen HABERMAS concern with the engines of modernity:
money, power and solidarity. Money and power have been overused,
with the risk of bankrupting the vitality of European integration.
Solidarity, despite its leftist dimension (or thanks to it) can constitute
a reinvigorating resource in times of Euro-sclerosis. The case of the
European Social Chart put forward by Jacques DELORS at the end of
the 1980s can prove the point made above.

4.2. Cohesive function
ETHOS brings people and states together; it closes the gap between
political ambitions and the will of society. The relation between states
and societies is particularly important. The concept of biopolitics,
defined by Michel FOUCAULT as a continuous concern of the
government for the health, demography and morality of its population,
is particularly relevant in this respect. If the four fundamental
freedoms that the EU created are to be exploited by its population in
the area of biopolitics, it is obvious that a shift from national biopolitics
to supranational biopolitics is happening, as states lose the control of
its population growth and morality. This is why the group believes that
a common European standard in the realm of biopolitics will be
necessary in the prevention of national or regional disparities or
distortions ranging from healthcare services to working conditions
legislation.

4.3. Perpetuating function
ETHOS is a prerequisite condition in the achievements of a scope
(telos) and, in time, transforms a fulfilled telos into a new element of
ethos (for example, democracy has been for many centuries a telos, which after
being achieved in the European countries, became an ETHOS.)

4.4. Conditioning function
ETHOS is in the same time a criteria to be used in the analysis and
evaluation of the performance of a community. ETHOS when it comes
to the European integration process will be one of the most important
standard in examining the chances and the stage of one state to
accede to EU.
In this respect, the EU factors are trying to set out new standards for
the states that want to accede to the EU, by developing the well-
known and applied criteria so far, codifying and referring to the
European values.


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4.5. Descriptive function
The presence of ETHOS in a community is indicative of a certain level
of social and economic development of a given community.


5. DYNAMICS HOW DOES IT LIVE?

Where is ETHOS coming from was a challenging discussion practically
connected to the discussions on its elements, but how is it better
received and perceived by the people and how is its infringement
sanctioned were two more topics that the group tried to answer,
resulting the following:

5.1. Formation and crystallization:

ETHOS springs from three sources: religion, morality and law.
Depending on the source ETHOS has been crystallized in different
forms of religious practice, moral conduct, but most recent and
tangible one is the crystallization in the form of law.
Nemine censetur ignorare legem or nobody can invoke not knowing
the law, the Romans used to say, by law understanding also the moral
and the religious norms. The laws became in time the best well known
form of ETHOS. The group intended to highlight the similarity between
the evolution of values and the evolution of legitimacy, as theorized by
Max WEBER. The three types of legitimacy (charismatic, traditional
and legal) established by WEBER go together with the three categories
of values to which leaders respond.

5.2. Future:

ETHOS is per se a telos sometimes and the TELOS becomes the
ethos. The future of ETHOS resides in the accuracy of the telos
and the capacity of fulfilling it.

5.3. Sanctioning:

The compliance of ETHOS is being controlled and sanctioned at
national level and at international level, usually by specialized
institutions in control, among which people usually turn to national and
international courts (European Court of Justice, European Court of
Human Rights, The Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, International
Criminal Court and others).
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The European Union has also several means of sanctioning the states
that do not respect its ETHOS going until the possibility of suspending
one states right to vote inside the EU.


6. EUROPEAN INTEGRATION HOW DOES INTEGRATION
AFFECT ETHOS?

In the view of the theoretical analysis of the process of adaptation
made by Jean Piaget, the group concluded that there are two
simultaneous sub-processes at work in the European institutions and
in its Member States. European integration imposes the processes of
assimilation and accommodation for the above mentioned actors.

6.1 Assimilation

Member States undergo a process of assimilating the European ETHOS
by adopting the acquis communautaire which has been established
according to the community method (for pillar I) and to the
intergovernmental method (for pillars II and III), depending on a
specific moment of European integration. For example, in the process
of enlargement, an applicant state must start by signing an association
treaty with the European Union, then it has to open negotiations and,
after a reasonable period of time for both parties, the EU ETHOS is
being implemented into national ETHOS, then that state will sign an
accession treaty with the EU. After this stage, a period of
crystallization of the European ETHOS at the national level will begin.

6.2 Accommodation

The European Union undergoes a process of accommodating the
ETHOS of a new member state by providing a large enough framework
characterized by benevolent neutrality to national values.

These processes are also relevant for the re/formation of national and
European identities. In this respect, the group expects the EU to
evolve in the direction of valuing Martin HEIDEGGERS notion of dasein
- open project - (the single, highest stage of neutrality which allows
individual entities to adopt, change and invent a multitude of
identities).




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7. PERSPECTIVES OF ETHOS IN THE EU WHERE TO?

Bearing in mind that the future of ETHOS, especially in the perspective
of an increased number of countries wanting to join the EU, is given by
the goals that the EU sets for itself, the group has underlined a
number of key directions. These directions are also some of the
preoccupations stressed out at the EUs level in the discussion on the
alteration of the main treaties governing this organization:

The strengthening of the importance of values in the process of
accession to the EU;
ETHOS may help the EU in defining a coherent neighboring
policy that the EU does not have so far;

ETHOS may provide the basis for fulfilling the democracy deficit
at the European level by reinforcing the democratic equality of
all citizens and representative democracy and by providing a
participative democracy of citizens in the context of legislating;
the sensitive topic of democracy at the EU level has been given a
deeper discussion; in the light of Pierre Rosanvallons thesis
exposed in his book Democracy Anti-democracy. Politics in the
Age of Defiance, he believes that what apparently are disruptive,
negative values (public distrust towards governments, perpetual
suspicion and anger against governments) are actually the
ETHOS of a new democracy which is against the mainstream
understanding of democracy. This anti-democracy is said to
evolve either towards populism a democracy in which public
distrust and investigation are intensively used to the point of
making governments fearful and cautious in its functions- or
towards what the French author names apolitique civic
disengagement. In order for the EU to avoid these undesirable
extremes, it must work to forge a ETHOS strong enough to resist
the pressures coming from the above mentioned extremes. It
can only do so by reforming its institutions along democratic
lines, its procedures along more transparent ways. These
reforms are obvious objectives for the European Union, and,
more importantly, they were brought about by the danger of
having a fragmented ethos. A. APPADURAI presented a worst
case scenario for a fragmented society. In his Geometry of
Anger, Fear of Small Numbers, he highlights the danger of
having a society fragmented and organized in the manner of
terrorist cells which would only interact only with those who
share their values. This is a danger that the EU should be aware
of and work to avoid it.
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Based on a common ETHOS, new needs arise to define and
respond to challenges in areas such as asylum policy or
bioengineering.

8. CONCLUSIONS


The group concluded on the importance and the vitality of ETHOS for
the future of EU stressing out that:

ETHOS is the liaison between the demos and the telos. A
potential demos will need a common ethos to achieve a
higher telos.


ETHOS is the soul of one community holding together the
body ( the demos) and its expectations.


ETHOS is the engine of a community putting resources
together in order to achieve certain obj ectives.


ETHOS will be the future of EU and the main criteria for its
enlargement







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WORKING GROUP ON ETHOS






NAME POSITION
Ovidiu Lorin HAGIMA Coordinator
Petrut ALEXANDRU Raporteur
Diana Andreea
GHEORGHILA
Member
Stela STAMATOVA Member
Cristian RUDOLF Member
Claudiu Sergiu CALIN Member

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